New Report: Low Vaccination Rates to Blame for Disneyland Measles Outbreak

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Vaccination rates are as low as 50 percent in the areas plagued by recent measles outbreaks, new data by Boston Children’s Hospital researchers suggests.

The findings follow a string of measles cases reported in mid-December at California’s Disneyland Park in Anaheim. Most of those diagnosed with the disease were children, according to the California Department of Public Health.

The Boston researchers used mathematics to scrutinize the December Disneyland Park measles cases, as well as the recent outbreaks in Arizona and Illinois, and found that between 50 to 86 percent of people were vaccinated in communities where the outbreaks occurred. A percentage of 96 to 99 vaccinated residents is needed to reach the status of community immunity, CBS Boston noted.

“The people who are in need of the most protection are the very people that can’t be immunized and rely on their friends and family and neighbors to be immunized to protect them,” says Dr. Maimuna Majumber, the study’s author and a research fellow at Health Math Computational Epidemiology Group at Boston Children’s Hospital.

Preliminary data by Dr. Majumber and his group was printed by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Pediatrics publication on Monday.

According to Vaccines.gov, community immunity, also referred to as herd immunity, is sustained when the majority of a community is protected against a contagious disease, resulting in “little opportunity for an outbreak.” Even infants, pregnant women, or immunocompromised individuals get some protection despite the lack of eligibility for certain vaccines.

Between the first day of 2015 to March 13, 176 Americans were infected with measles and reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Meanwhile, the debate among parents whether to support a measles vaccination continues.